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*We have the pleasure to announce that the registration for the conference "Flashbacks - nostalgic media and mediated forms of nostalgia" is open now. * *Please contact: [log in to unmask]* *Fees: 100 CHF (normal fee), 70 CHF (students)* * * *Preliminary program: http://flashbacks2012.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/flashbacks_program3.pdf* * * *Key Notes: Daniel Dayan (Paris), Ute Holl (Basel), Andrew Hoskins (Glasgow) * * * *13-14 September 2012 * Institute of Communication, Media and Journalism studies University of Geneva, Switzerland Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences Department of Sociology The conference is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences http://flashbacks2012.wordpress.com/ Media are time machines. They remember and forget. Media screen and record parts of memory and history as well as they maintain collective memories and contribute to historical narratives by (re)shaping events, happenings or other incidents. Media also tend to remind their own past by re-using archive-images in the present, for example. In this sense, media seem to be nostalgic of the past as well as of their own one. Nostalgia as a concept, feeling or expression is not new. The notion has been introduced by a doctor in Switzerland (17th century) to describe the phenomenon of homesickness. Related to nostalgia is also the idea of melancholia or yearning. These days, there seems to be a BOOM of nostalgia: The Artist (revival of the silent film) or television series like Mad Men – exploring aesthetics and social life of the sixties – are examples of what we could name nostalgic media (makers). Digital photography on cell phones gets a polaroid-touch; the retro design becomes digitized. Advertising for watches or cars is linked to nostalgic forms of family tradition. Fans of the fifties organise parties and fashion events to feel like being part of the past in the present. Being nostalgic and remembering pieces of the past also includes forgetting. What kind of memories are discriminated? Can media really be nostalgic? Which specific forms of nostalgia appear in contemporary society and why? Can people be nostalgic if they did not experience the past they pretend being nostalgic of? What kind of politics of nostalgia exist? What is the impact of nostalgia on the media market and its influence on economy? Finally, given the arbitrary (?) use of the past in all its imaginable variations and cultural systems, is it still possible to use the word nostalgia or should there be a neologism describing the transformation of the past in(to) the digital era? Could it even be possible to be simply nostalgic of nostalgia; finally describing the eternal research for (lost) identity? -- http://flashbacks2012.wordpress.com/ Katharina Niemeyer Université de Genève/ Département de sociologie Institut des sciences de la communication, des médias et du journalisme 40 Boulevard du Pont-d'Arve 1211 Genève 4 Tél.: ++41 22 379 8196 http://www.isc.unige.ch/ <http://www.unige.ch/ses/socio/communication> -------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA mailing list -------------------------------------------------------- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the MECCSA list, please visit: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=MECCSA&A=1 ------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education. Membership is open to all who teach and research these subjects in HE institutions, via either institutional or individual membership. The field includes film and TV production, journalism, radio, photography, creative writing, publishing, interactive media and the web; and it includes higher education for media practice as well as for media studies. This mailing list is a free service from MeCCSA and is not restricted to members. For further information, please visit: http://www.meccsa.org.uk/ --------------------------------------------------------